I got stuck for about a day and half with this.

A client had a server with two instances of SQL installed – the default being SQL 2000 and the named instance being SQL2005. I needed to connect through SQL Management Studio remotely.

The default configuration was that the SQL2005 instance was using dynamic ports – no good to us as their firewall restrictions were particularly strict.

I requested port 14430 be opened and I set TCP/IP to listen on this port on the named instance but then still it wouldn’t let me connect, saying the instance could not be found.

Eventually I found the solution – purely a case of getting the right syntax for the Server Name property when connecting – the solution is as follows…

Server name : tcp:SERVERNAME,portnumber

I will post up a full walkthrough of how to configure the ports and allow remote connections shortly!